Menglish, middle eastern English

Our language is Menglish, Middle Eastern English.

This is the language developped by the natives of the Middle East in response to the on going
colonialism of the English language and culture attached.
Menglish is a relief, We do not judge our selves by the correct accent, spelling or structure of a given sentence.
We rather let the emotions take us through a song or a poem.

Artist on Labeleh are hapy to talk and sing Menglish.

Zavta, legendary Tel Aviv venue celebrates 50

I was about 8 years old when on my way home from school I heard music arriving from an appartments building on Dizengoff st. I think it was no.212.
Instead of keep going home I forgot it all and entered the building's yard. What a wonderful site I found. About 10
people singing, rehearsing, the title of the band was Bazal Yarok, Green Onion, Cahim Topol was a band member.
This was the begining of a relation ship I keep alive for more than 45 years now.
As a member of the audience, as an artist manager and concert promoter, as a sound designer and friend to the wonderful people from the Kibutz movement Hashomer Hazair who called the place Zavta for progressive culture.
A term that may have lost it's core now days, but for decades served as the driving force for new music, theatre, poetry, stand up comedy and political/social panels.
I was at high school, Zavta moved to the corner of Mapu and Ben Yehuda st. This was a basement of another appartments building, about 250 seats.I used to sit and listen from the outside. I did not have the money to pay for a ticket.
This is how I first heard Chava Alberstein. She played her songs playing guitar, I new she is going to be Chava.
I wanted to get inside legitimatly, I had to find an idea that will make it possible for me to enter without paying.I also heard the Shlosharim with Shalom Chanoch, Chanan Yovel and the late Beni Amdursky.
At that time I played the guitar and had worked with the first artist as manager, I was 16 years of age, she was 15, her name Netanela, she is one of the greatest voices in the history of Israeli music, yet, apart from singing on the European sound track of Shindler's lists the great pieace by Chana Senesh, Eli Eli she did very little for her international career during the years.
At the time althogh still at high school, Ironi H, I was determind to make her a star. which I managed to do very quickly.
Rock music was every where. I saw the co existence with Israeli music, but the older generation felt thretened by the new rock music.
I have approached Shimon Menachem the manager of Zavta with an offer he could not ignore.
I will create an evening full of traditional Israeli music performed by a young band to include Netanela, Dorit Pendrich (Sade) and Eliuz Rabin. There will be modern arrangements.
Shimon invited Sasha Argov and Noami Shemer, the two dominent writers in the history of Israeli music to audition my band. We were accepted, I was about to produce for Zavta, what a great moment.
One day at Zavta I saw beaty as never seen before enters the door. They told me her name is Yona Elian, I will never forget that moment.
There was only one obstucle I did not calculate, the parents of Eliuz and Dorit did not allow them to perform professionally when at high school.
Well, I may lost the opportunity to produce for Zavta but from that moment on I became a member of th Zavta family and I never had to pay again to enter the temple of progressive culture.

At Zavta on Mapu street I herd the Cherchils, The Electric Sage with legendary Shlomo Mizrachi, Acharit Hayamim
with Miri Aloni, Eli Magen, Gabi Shoshan, Cherchil and Zohr Levi.
I heard jazz legend Mel Keller with Gideon Shemer, Chava Alberstein, Arik Einstein and more.

As I joined the army at 18 Zavta moved to it's current location in London Ministor. I was already a producer in my own right.
At Zavta I was presenting Tamuz togrether with Michael Tapuach and Amnon Zaban,a few months before Louis Lahav joined as producer I saw a double bill to include Tamuz , pre Lahav, and Arik Einstein and the Cherchils.
there were less than 150 in the audience. Today we could have a stadium sold out with those artists.

Later on we had Yoni Rechter and Avner Kener with Zohar Levi, than Mati Caspi and Netanela and many more.

In the late seventies I came in with Nurit Galron and in the Ninties with Noa, Achinoam Nini and gil Dor.

In the new Millenium i returned with Yehudith Ravitz and Izabo.

Today they celebrate 50 and I am not there, I did not know, It is too late to go after it is all over. Any way, in my heart I celebrate 50 years of Zavta, 50 yaers of great music, poetry, theatre, people, experiences.

Today, Labeleh, what a name?

Today I am going to tell you why I called my label Labeleh.

It goes back many years, to some time in the beginning of the 20th century.During those days, many immigrants arrived in the US from Eastern Europe. Many of them were Jewish people who could not keep on living under the threat of pogroms, people who saw the promise America has for new immigrants, regardless of their descent.

In the Jewish tradition, there is a term, something one can not really translate, relating to a tradition of happiness that has nothing to do necessarily with artistic commitment. There is no word in the English language that really captures its meaning.

The word is freilach. It is something within your body that creates happiness for you and those around you regardless of the reality of life.

It is what we experience in the entertainment business, be it singing, dancing, acting, or any other form of art.
In many ways, freilach has evolved into legitimate forms of entertainment. Some elements of the freilach have contributed to what we know today as stand-up comedy.

In Wikipedia, freilach is associated with folklore, a way of life, lifestyle, cultural behavior of a community, habits, happiness, tradition and more. However, none of these terms really comes close to defining the essence of freilach.
To me, freilach is the survival kit that made it possible for Jewish people in the Diaspora of Eastern Europe to keep moving, to find moments of relief to reflect on all aspects of human existence, be it mourning loudly when enjoying a hot ball of soup after some one whom you know left, or sigh when having a good meal, laughing when life gets difficult, and crying from happiness after surviving a crisis.There were families associated with freilach; you could tell by the name.

Bitenski, was one such name. I wrote it with ignorance Bitansky when I was 13. I had to write my name in my English note book, but there was nobody to teach me or to show me the difference between Bitansky (which is associated with the boots) and Bitenski, which has no English equivalent.
Well, my late father Chaim was born to a family associated with freilach, wisdom, and the spirit of revolution.They wanted to become part of the society they were living in, for the first time, between the two World Wars.
Jewish people in Poland were allowed to join workers unions, so one brother became a leather man, another a builder, and the third, my father, a tailor.I always sing “My father was a tailor”, reflecting on the “House of the Rising Sun”, the classic I first heard by the legendary Animals.

My father and mother always had the radio on. While listening to the radio, I used to help in easy works around his tailoring. He always encouraged me to go wherever I wanted, withno borders or limitations. For my parents freilach is genius, and their son is a genius.
They will do all that they can and can't do to make me happy.

Anyway, after many years in the music business I have realized that the ties between music business and textile world are so much stronger than I thought could be.I first heard the name Labeleh when my mother told me of a neighbor I played with when I was just one year old. His name was Labeleh.

My father explained to me that in Yiddish, ‘labe” is a lion and “labeleh” is a young lion. Thus, a baby whose name is “Lion” would become known as “Labeleh” as he got older.In addition, the Polish and Jewish people used to call the tziziot (ritual fringes worn by religious Jews) “Labeleh.”

To make a long story longer, when those immigrants from Poland and Russia came to the US by the end of the 19th century through the beginning of the 20th century, many of them dealt with different aspects of the textile industry while others were musicians, actors, writers and storytellers.

Since life was so much easier for the textile people, they supported the artists. They needed the artists in the same way that a flower needs a gardener, and the art that was created in their new homeland came as water for the plants.

New stories, songs, and plays made the link between past present and future and created a platform to allow the new immigrants reinvent themselves or, more accurately, re-plant themselves in the new soil where old and new roots co-exist in the building of a new life structure.
So, it happened that the likes of Irving Berlin, Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and many others where financed by entrepreneurs from the textile industry.This is where our long story becomes longer.
When they listened to a song they sponsored, they would tell their friends, "This is my label"Since they were obliged to put a label on the shirts and jackets they manufactured in the new world, they did not bother to search for a new term and simply called the songs they payed for “my label”.
This is how a record company became synonymous with the term “label”.

Freilach. Textile. Survival. Reinvention of one's life

All in all, what we call “creativity”.

yom shishi at yodaat

Friday, we are going to visit our friends, Dud Livni and Orna. all Chevre will arrive, Ofer and Orit, Moti and Sima,
Shmil and Ruti, Winer and Ronit and more...Mabe Zevik and Tami.

I have just returned from another 36 hours to Paris. Had a great time with Izabo.

To be continued.

Tonight is the night

10.2/07

I am on the train from Rennes to Paris. Izabo played for Jean Loui at Ubu in Rennes, a double bill with Archie Bronson Outfit.
The place was packed, audience were crazy for izabo. Something is going on, I can tell, I have heard we have a cult action in us colleges through myspace; seatle radio is playing izabo every day, nothing to say.
I am going through a great experience, happiness, music, people, some people in Rennes are so unique. I m lucky I have the opportunity to meet them.

I have decided to share with you all the tickets and back stage passes I have collected during my existence, I think I begun collecting sometimes in the late seventies, I have tickets for Zappa, The Stones, Roger Chapman, I have tickets from concerts where I was involved as a concert promoter such as Joe Cocker, Chick Corea, Nina Hagen, Jack Bruce, and more.

I have tickets and back stage passes for concerts where I was invoved as a soun designer or a sound and light company, endless, once in a life time experiences,
For their human values and people I have met.

Today we try to get tickets for Psg against Monaco just before our flight.
I have Waves in my head heart and every where, I am so fucking lucky to work at Waves and to contribute all I know in sound and music while keep learning with this wonderful genius people who makes Waves Audio what it is.

I am going to add more photos. a combination of my real and virtual offices where I spend a lot of time together with photos taken from the terrace of my home in Tel Aviv.
I am waiting to get some photos from my young son, Guy, he is in India.
Tonight, tonight, tonight,
It is right, it is light, it is fight,
For music, for neusic, for smuzique,
Tonight tonight tonight.
It is right, it is tight, it is night,
To allow tomorrow, to have naboro, to sleep and make room for dreams and hopes.
It is night for life, knife to cut in the darkness and..

Paris, Izabo, Life, wife, friends,

8/2/07
Very soon I am going to learn how to add music, video and photos, I hope it will become more exciting.
I am in Paris, yesterday we had Izabo playing at Flesh D’Or. After a late night concert
in Levontin on the 5th of February they left for Paris for a tour and promotion in support of the French release of the Fun Makers.
3 years after the original release and after Israel, The Netherlands and England comes France.
Great clip for “morning hero”, a making of film, and 2 live cuts from the previous
concert at Flesh D’Or. All, in support of a wonderful unique band.
To me there is nothing like Izabo on the face of earth.
I met Hovannes, the one. I am negotiating havily with the label.
They are great young people with energy I can only remember I had but not any more.
I will do all I can do to help them make it.
I am with Ron Peled, he is in investment banker yet a great fan of rock music.
I know I have a new friend, Roni.
I am so tired, eating , dating, but what about sleep?

labeleh festivalon opened tonight at levontin/delayed

First I want to sayI am sorry, I have not managed to up load the music I promised last time, I hope I will learn how to up load soon.

and yet, I am ready for tonight's big news, Macabi lost to BNEI Hasharon.
Earlier, at Levontin I was waiting to see if people are going to arrive for Zohar Fresco's concert on a rainy Monday night. Levontin 7 is somewhere in down town Tel Aviv. Capacity is about 200.
Zohar the genius percussion man, the one with the unique voice is really excited.
once i saw audience waiting on the stairs on the way down to the basement i felt a dejavu.
My best friend Eli Naum comes in and say, like the time has never past. "sichakta ota" you did it man.

35 years a go I started "underground sounds" at "bar barim" on Ben Avigdor 10. it was a basement club dedicated to jazz every Sunday night. the legendary Mel Keller, a great musician and a wonderful man, with the young Aharon kaminsky, Israel's best ever drummer invited people to play. this is where we got our education. Mel Keller explained
to the audience about jazz, it is not explainable.
any way I was a young soldier with plenty of free time, the army allowed me to work on my free time in order to support my parents, at the time they both were not healthy and did not make any money in order to make a living.
I have decided to have a world with music that no body could hear on the radio and is not available in record stores and to ask people to pay for listening to vanilla fudge, Pink Floyd,.

on the first night I had misic by the Beatles bootlegs, Pink floyed, King Crimson, Steve Winwood and more.
Hillel Avramov played the discs.
At midnight we had a live set with Itzak Clepter, Misha Segal and a drumer idon't remember.
We asked for 2.5 Israeli Lira at the door and the room was packed. I was in heaven.
First night at Levontin mini festival with the first set by Zohar Fresco and second by Izabo gave me the same shot.

my granddaughters

yaara and hagar,

hagar is 20 months and yaara is 4 and a half years old, choresh is 34 years of age, he is married to galit.

they are israelis, language, music, food, family.

they don't know any of the artists i work with.

when they arrive like today, miri my wife is cooking great, i play jj cale to the girls to get them some music i used to listen to when in my teens.

they have 2 great virtual friends i have created for them when yaara just begun to talk.

they are hump and the bird. hump stands for everything the girls needs hump to stand for.it could be a girlfriend, a car, the sky or money, the bird is the bird that we are all in need for. for it's voice, singing, alert, reminder and beauty.

yaara is taking care on hump and the bird. she feeds them, puts them to bed at night and teaches them music and all about life in the real world.

when i was at the same age yaara is at today i remember music on the radio, all types of music, arabic, hebrew, classic,folk,yiddish, chazanut which is cantors music and more.

radio was the only source for music at home, my mother used to dance. every once in a while she would jump from bed, where she spent most of her time, emerge with a wild, near crazy dance followed by loud singing and a laughter. once the song she loves was over she returned to bed, claiming again a migraine.

this is how i learned about pain and hope through love, music and art.

usherul, she used to call me, my uncle is david oistrach she continued, one of the greatest violin masters in the world. he doesn't know where i am.

i could never tell if she is making the story or not. in the basement were we lived there was an old violin, i never made an attempt to play this violin. it didn't belong with my world. the violin was a part of a broken world, a secret world that nobody talks about. i had to live for the future, to be prepared for better times when we have a better home and not use the building's basement that served as public shelter at war times as our apartment.

tomorrow i will allow you an arabic remix by my friend yoad nevo. soon on http://www.yoadnevo.com/ he works with me at waves audio ltd. i was privileged to work with him when managing noa as producer mixer on noa's album titled now and some other projects like cantor spielman.

THE BLOG IS MINE, YOU R ALLOWED TO SHARE

welcome to my new blog,

i am new to blogs as i only heard the term but never had one.

i told some of my friends that i want to move from tel aviv to the internet.
they told me that if i am planing on leaving all my existing premises in order to live and make a living in the internet i should have a blog.

i went to the grocery next door and asked, do yo have a fresh blog, preferably an organic one?
the woman told me to watch the milk area and if not it might be with the fresh vegetables.

i tried my best but could not find any. do you know how it looks? i asked, i did not see one yet,
she answered. they bring it every morning when i am with the children, i only arrive at about 10am every day and you are the first person to ask for a blog since i begun working here 2 years ago.

my mother tongue is yiddish, jewish, not english, my parents arrived in the holly land after experiencing the Holocaust, mother never really recovered, thus she did not speak the language
every body else spoke, hebrew, as a child i heard a mixture of polish, Russian, yiddish and hebrew. the languages i kept with me are yiddish and hebrew.

well, i might get it wrong, the blog. i called my son who is a software programmer and a traveller,
i asked, guy , what is a blog? i need to have one.
he answered impatiently like all children with fathers like myself. i have no idea how you can get one.
don't you have one? i asked.
no i don't, it is useless says guy.

at the end you can see i managed to know all i need in order to have one.

this blog is where i am going to share with you all my life in music, sound and above all life.